Relievers

NEW YORK -- Relievers are usually a different breed. They spend most of the game together in the bullpen, where they make up their own activities to keep themselves occupied. But what about when nearly all of the relievers are in the dugout going into the 13 th inning? Cameras caught Orioles players gathering in a circle in the dugout going into the 13 th inning of the Orioles' series-tying 2-1 win in game 4 last night. They later lined all of their hats in a row along the front railing of the dugout, a lineup of cartoon birds staring at the Yankees.

The Orioles were not a perfect team in 2012, though it's easy to get nostalgic about their first truly competitive season of this century. They were plugging holes in the starting rotation throughout the summer. They needed several months to assemble an adequate defense. And clutch hitting was always an issue. The only component of the club that was never cause for serious concern was the bullpen, which was pretty much airtight and was the main reason the Orioles put up otherworldly numbers in one-run and extra-inning games.

It's now less than two weeks before pitchers and catchers report to Sarasota, Fla., but I still get a sense Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette isn't done compiling his roster. Really, I'm not sure there is ever a time when he stops (he added another veteran outfielder Tuesday with the signing of Chris Dickerson to a minor league deal). Remember, news of the Jeremy Guthrie trade didn't break until the morning after last year's Super Bowl -- and that probably proved to be Duquette's biggest move of 2012 (because it brought the club's top starter, Jason Hammel, and reliever Matt Lindstrom, who eventually was traded in August for Joe Saunders)

Loading his earthly belongings into a laundry cart that he rented from Campus Services, Johns Hopkins University freshman Austin Dennis made several trips from his dormitory room to his car on residential Greenway at North Charles Street, opposite the Homewood campus May 15. It was move-out week for Hopkins students as the school year ended, and Dennis, an economics major, was catching a flight that night to his hometown of Miami, Fla., where he...

Since the start, these Orioles have been wildly unpredictable -- and I mean that in a good way -- which is why they will go down as one of the most lovable teams in Baltimore sports lore. But there have been a few constants for a team that probably had to play name games once a week to stay familiar with an endless parade of new faces. There was Buck Showalter, the manager who has mostly made all the right moves. There was Adam Jones, who brings toughness and swagger every night.

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Orioles should be kicking small-market butt, but last night they fell to feeble Minnesota after losing their opener to helpless Kansas City.Bud Selig is 2-0.Peter Angelos is 0-2.Help!Two games into the season, and the Orioles soon might need to promote a minor-league pitcher to bolster their 12-man staff. Two games into the season, and the bullpen already is a disaster.Yet, manager Phil Regan hardly seemed concerned after last night's 7-4 loss to the Twins. Regan not only insisted the relievers were throwing well, he predicted they'll show marked improvement soon.

Orioles reliever Pedro Strop turned 27 earlier this month, but he's already overcome a career's worth of obstacles. There were plenty of nights filled with uncertainty - and tears - along the way. There were times when he wondered whether his childhood dream would ever become reality, whether those times rehabbing and reinventing would ever pay off. "A lot of tough times," Strop said, sitting at his locker in the corner of the Orioles' clubhouse...

CLEVELAND - -In the first two weeks of September, the Orioles promoted six relievers and acquired another, left-hander Sean Henn, in a minor league trade. The hope was that the additions would bolster a tired bullpen and give several pitchers an opportunity to show that they belong at the major league level. What it has done instead is reveal a lack of organizational depth in that area and likely made several necessary offseason roster decisions much easier to make. In the first 21 games this month, the Orioles bullpen has a 6.43 ERA, having allowed 50 earned runs in 70 innings.

NEW YORK -- Jesse Orosco's big-game experience includes getting the final out of the 1986 World Series and tossing his glove toward the heavens as his New York Mets teammates celebrated.Archie Corbin's most pressure-filled game was a basketball contest with a rival high school.Such is the nature of the Orioles bullpen as the last 11 days of the pennant race unfold.A few relievers, such as Orosco and Randy Myers, have a ton of big-game and postseason experience. Others, such as Corbin, Terry Mathews, Armando Benitez and Alan Mills, will be counted on in the clutch, too. But those relievers must reach back to high school or the minor leagues to recall competing with everything on the line.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -With their roles no longer certain, Orioles relievers held a "bullpen only" meeting in the visiting clubhouse at Tropicana Field before Monday's series opener against the Tampa Bay Rays. They were mum on what was discussed, though Orioles manager Dave Trembley made it clear that the meeting was planned by the relievers, not the coaching staff, who held their own meeting in Trembley's office before the game. "That was an impromptu get-together on their part," Trembley said.

MINNEAPOLIS - There are no secrets as far as Orioles right-hander Tommy Hunter is concerned. He figures he's been a good pitcher in the past - he went 13-4 with a 3.73 ERA for the Texas Rangers in 2010 - and he'll be a good pitcher in the future. So he's not even slightly surprised that he's currently a good pitcher - in fact he's arguably the Orioles' most effective one right now. He hasn't been scored on in his last nine appearances out of the bullpen, a span of 14 2/3 innings.

Details of financial transactions by members of Congress and thousands of high-level federal workers were supposed to be posted online last month for anyone in the world to see — a key step, supporters of the move said, toward greater transparency in government. What happened instead was President Barack Obama signed a law that once again made the financial information of public employees — useful for identifying insider trading or conflicts of interest — difficult to find.

The commander of the Navy unit that included two sailors who drowned at Aberdeen Proving Ground in February has been relieved of his duties, the Navy said Wednesday. The Navy said Cmdr. Michael Runkle, who led the Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 2, was relieved because of a "loss of confidence in his ability to command. " Diver 1st Class James Reyher, 28, of Caldwell, Ohio, and Diver 2nd Class Ryan Harris, 23, of Gladstone, Mo., died Feb. 26 during a training exercise at a testing facility at Aberdeen known as the Super Pond.

The Roosevelt Park Recreation Center reopened Wednesday after being closed for about a month because of a broke water pipe. "I missed it," said Gabrielle Barnes, 10, a third grader from Hampden Elementary/Middle School. She was one of 14 children who returned to the center for after-school enrichment activities. Usually, that number is about 25, but some families might not have gotten the message yet that the center was reopen, director Joshua Fissel said. The pipe was repaired at a cost of $10,000, said Kia McLeod, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks.

Orioles reliever Pedro Strop said he's never lost his confidence even through some rough outings in the first three weeks of the season. And the Orioles' confidence in Strop to preserve a one-run lead in the eighth inning of their 4-3 win over the Blue Jays on Tuesday night was rewarded in turn. “That was huge because that was the game right there,” Strop said afterward. “I've been struggling lately and that's good to have some confidence back, and I feel even better because I gave my team the opportunity to win. Who knows?

NEW YORK -- The Orioles have claimed right-hander Alex Burnett off waivers from the Toronto Blue Jays, the club announced before Friday's game at Yankee Stadium. In order to make room for Burnett, who will report to Triple-A Norfolk, on the 40-man roster, the club transferred designated hitter Wilson Betemit to the 60-day disabled list. Betemit suffered a Grade 2/3 PCL tear in his right knee during the final week of spring training. Burnett, 25, was 4-4 with a 3.52 ERA and 10 holds last season with the Twins, allowing 71 hits over 72 1/3 relief innings.

When the Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays begin a three-game series Tuesday at Camden Yards, the two most effective relievers in the American League will be in uniform. It's fair to speculate that without Orioles closer Jim Johnson and Rays closer Fernando Rodney, their teams probably wouldn't be in playoff contention. Orioles manager Buck Showalter has said all season that Johnson's steadying presence in the back of the bullpen and in the clubhouse has been one of, if not the most important element, in the club's surprising success.

Much has been made about Dan Duquette's offseason focus of strengthening the Orioles' starting rotation - retooling it with pitchers capable of providing quality innings - but it's in the bullpen where the team's new executive vice president of baseball operations might have made his most notable hauls. In rebuilding a pitching staff that had a major league-worst 4.89 ERA last season, Duquette has assembled a dynamic stable of late-inning relievers, ones who created the spring's most compelling competition down the stretch in Sarasota.

BOSTON -- The Orioles traded veteran reliever Luis Ayala to the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday, receiving minor league left-handed reliever Chris Jones in return. But the move was less about unloading Ayala than it was allowing the Orioles the opportunity to keep Rule 5 pick T.J. McFarland while moving to a seven-man bullpen. It lets the team go to back a four-man bench after playing short-handed since Saturday. The Orioles purchased the contract of outfielder Chris Dickerson from Triple-A Norfolk, and he replaced Ayala on the 40-man and 25-man rosters.

Mike Gottlieb feels like the Death Row inmate who gets a last-minute reprieve from the governor. Only in this case, the governor came up with $300,000 out of the state budget to keep Gottlieb's Towson University baseball team alive for a couple more years. So there was Gottlieb on Wednesday afternoon at Towson's Schuerholz Park, standing in the bright sunshine and biting wind before the Tigers' 5-3 loss to Navy, marveling at what a close call it had been for his team. "I remember growing up in the 60's," he was saying now, "and there was a Superman episode where they found out a guy who was on Death Row was innocent.